


It's OK to Break Tradition (Sometimes)

by pjsta



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Not Beta Read, a birthday fic for a birthday boy, birthday fic, happy birthday tsukishima kei, i wrote this purely for my own amusement, just a silly thing really, seriously its all just a blur, small mentions of some of the team members but they're all there really, tsukki is blind without his glasses, yamaguchi is a little s
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-27
Updated: 2017-09-27
Packaged: 2019-01-06 06:50:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12206034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pjsta/pseuds/pjsta
Summary: Kei has routines in life, even for his birthday. Yamaguchi decides to break it for once.





	It's OK to Break Tradition (Sometimes)

Kei had a routine in life, and he liked to stick to it.

He had school, volleyball practice, and he had Yamaguchi, who had been a constant presence since they were kids. His general routine would change every now and then: an extra half hour’s practice occurred perhaps, or he wouldn’t have a practice with Akiteru to go to every now and then, but in general, his schedule remained unchanged. Even the general routine of his birthday had remained the same for years. He didn’t like to make a fuss over birthdays, and he never had. He usually treated it like a normal day, albeit with a couple of small Yamaguchi-based changes. In all honesty, his family and Yamaguchi were usually more excited for Kei’s birthday than he was.

So when his first birthday at high school came around, Kei wasn’t expecting anything new to occur.

 

The day started out ordinarily enough, with the usual routine he’d come to expect on his birthday. Yamaguchi came over in time for breakfast, rather than shortly before they’d leave for school, a tradition that went back to the second year of their friendship. His mum sent them off to school with more meaning behind her ‘ _have a good day at school, boys_ ’ than usual, her eyes shining because _my baby Kei’s growing up, look how grown up he is_. Yamaguchi, as usual, didn’t stop smiling, with that specific glint in his expression that Kei associated with Yamaguchi being seconds away from bragging about him.

Morning practice was normal. There wasn’t even that much attention to it being his birthday, for which Kei was grateful. He’d thought Yamaguchi would have declared it proudly to the entire world by now, but to his relief, he hadn’t.

Classes went on as usual. Kei was willing to bet that most of the class didn’t even know that it was his birthday, and honestly, he preferred it that way. He didn’t need some girl to get wind of it and ambush him on his birthday next year. It would be worse if they ambushed poor Yamaguchi about him _again_. That happened more times than either of them cared to count.

 

In all honesty, Kei should have expected that something was up.

He should have suspected that Yamaguchi had been far too quiet about it all. Normally, he pestered him about it being ‘his special day’, and announced it to at least a couple of people. Instead, Kei took comfort in the relief that no fuss had been made all day, and unsuspectingly packed up his belongings at the end of the day, ready to go to practice like usual.

“Tsukkiiiii,” Yamaguchi sang, appearing at his elbow as they slung their bags across their backs, “Can I try your glasses?”

Kei frowned. Yamaguchi had asked to try his glasses often enough that it wasn’t unusual, but why _now_? They were supposed to be on their way to practice.

“When we get to practice,” he told him, expecting that to be the end of it.

“Aw, please?” Yamaguchi asked. He was giving Kei his best puppy-dog look, one he’d perfected years ago. Kei was always suspicious of that look.

He’d seen it used to get Yamaguchi out of _everything_.

“Not now, Yamaguchi. You don’t want to make us late to practice, do you?”

“Please, Tsukki? Just quickly?” Kei gave him a look that would have most people backing away. But Yamaguchi wasn’t _most people_ , he’d proved that years ago. Instead of running, he grinned eagerly at Kei’s expression. True, they both knew that all of Kei’s glares aimed at Yamaguchi were less intense than those he aimed at everyone else, but even the glares for Yamaguchi would send most people packing.

“Fine,” Kei relented at last. Yamaguchi grinned at him, and took his glasses off of his face. Kei assumed that he’d put them on his own face, but Yamaguchi had become a blurry blob the minute his glasses had been taken away.

“Tsukki, you’re so _blind_ ,” Yamaguchi marvelled, as he normally did after stealing Kei’s glasses, then, “How do I look?”  
“With your eyes, normally.” Yamaguchi snorted.

“Not like _that_ ,” he sniggered.

“You know I can’t see you, Yamaguchi,” Kei frowned, “I don’t know what you expect me to say.”

“How many fingers am I holding up?” Kei’s frown deepened.

“Yamaguchi.”

“Try. Or I’m not giving them back.”

Kei squinted in Yamaguchi’s general direction, trying to make out the shape of Yamaguchi’s hand.

“Nope, nothing. Can I have my glasses back now?” He held his hand out expectantly.

“Nope!”

_What_.

“Yamaguchi, come on. I need my glasses. We have practice. I need to be able to _see_.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Fine,” Kei huffed. He picked a number at random, “Four.”

“Nope, keep guessing.”

“ _Really_ , Yamaguchi?” Yamaguchi didn’t answer. Kei strongly suspected he was smirking from ear to ear.

“Three?” Kei tried.

“Nope. Come on, you can keep guessing on our way to the clubroom.”

“What? But Yamaguchi -,”

“I’ll guide you, it’ll be fine,” Yamaguchi said, grabbing hold of his hands, “Don’t you trust me?”

“Last time you walked me into a tree,” Kei reminded him.

“I told you that was an accident,” he protested, although he sniggered at the memory.

“I had a great big bruise on my face for a week!” Kei persisted, “I don’t even know how you managed it!”

“Magic,” Yamaguchi snarked instantly, “And I did tell you I was sorry, I really didn’t mean to.”

“I know,” Kei relented, “but still. I’d rather not be walked into any trees today. Or poles for that matter.”

“It’ll be fine,” Yamaguchi assured him. He pulled, and Kei followed.

 

He made sure to complain about his situation every few minutes.

“Giving me my glasses would be much quicker,” he tried, as Yamaguchi led him steadily down a flight of stairs, “Don’t you go losing your balance, Yamaguchi.”

Yamaguchi scoffed.

“I’ll have you know that my balance is _flawless_ , Tsukki.”

It was true. Yamaguchi Tadashi was one of the most sure-footed people that Kei knew.

“Just don’t go shoving me down the stairs.”

“Such faith in me, Tsukki.”

“Shut up, Yamaguchi.”

“Sorry, Tsukki.” He wasn’t sorry, Kei knew. He could practically _hear_ Yamaguchi’s smirk.

 

Their progress through the school was slow. It was quiet, and Yamaguchi kept a steady pace so as not to trip Kei up. Every now and then, Yamaguchi told him where they were in the school.

“We’re about halfway there now,” he’d say, or, “We’re just passing the Kageyama’s milk vending machine, Tsukki.” Kei didn’t talk back, focusing most of his energy on keeping steady and trying to focus on where they were going.

 

As a general rule, Kei hated being without his glasses. He may as well have had his eyes closed for all he could see, but he kept his eyes open as wide as he could, trying to make sense of the blurs around him. When trying to make out the blurs began to give him a headache, Kei focused on the blur in front of him that was Yamaguchi. Despite disliking being without his glasses, Kei had never particularly minded being guided to places by Yamaguchi. He knew it was only for a short time, and Yamaguchi was usually careful enough with him that he felt mostly safe in his hands.

The event with the tree had been an exception.

 

“We’re going up the stairs now,” Yamaguchi told him, “We’re nearly there.”

“And then I can have my glasses back?”

“Then you can have your glasses back,” Yamaguchi promised.

“I’m holding you to that.”

Yamaguchi’s hands moved in his as though he’d shrugged. Kei gripped them tightly. The last thing he needed now was to trip up on the stairs on the way to the clubroom.

Kei was certain that they were incredibly late to practice, but to his surprise, loud, familiar voices seemed to be coming from nearby. Yamaguchi kept talking to him, telling him _last step, Tsukki_ , and _just this small stretch left, Tsukki_. The voices got hushed quickly around then, and Kei was sure he’d heard a door closing, but Yamaguchi had been talking over it, so he wasn’t entirely sure.

Just when it felt like the ‘small stretch’ was going to take forever, Yamaguchi pulled him to a stop.

“We’re here,” Yamaguchi told him, “Just got to get inside, and you can have your glasses back.”

“At last,” Kei muttered. Yamaguchi squeezed his hand a bit too tightly, which Kei knew meant that he should watch his tongue.

Yamaguchi dropped one of his hands, and his blur shifted in front of him, and Kei guessed he had turned to open the clubroom door.

“Come along, Tsukki,” Yamaguchi said cheerfully, taking his hand again and leading him through.

The room was light, which he hadn’t expected. The lights were always turned off as they left for the gym, and Kei knew he would have registered a light turning on. He squinted around him. There were blurs all around him, but, to his frustration, he couldn’t work out what they were supposed to be.

“Yamaguchi,” a voice hissed, “You were supposed to blindfold hi- _ouch_.” What sounded like Tanaka’s voice cut off at a _thwack_ noise.

Kei turned instinctively towards the voice.

“Tanaka-san?” he asked, there was no reply, and he turned back to glare at Yamaguchi’s blur, “Yamaguchi, what’s going on?” he asked suspiciously, “Give me my glasses back.” He held his hand out for them, but found them put straight onto his face instead. Kei blinked as the world shifted suddenly back into focus.

“ _Surprise!_ ” yelled many voices at once.

It was all Kei could do to try to not react.

Had he let instinct take over, he’d probably have jumped straight back out of the clubroom door. Instead, his well-practiced habit of non-reaction made his eyes merely widen in shock.

The rest of the team had clearly been hard at work during the lunch break and the time it took for he and Yamaguchi to get there, and Kei now realised that the ‘can I try your glasses’ had been a plot on Yamaguchi’s part to get him here at a pace that meant the others could do… all of this.

The room was decorated floor to ceiling with balloons, streamers and banners reading ‘happy birthday’. There was a cake sitting on a chair that had been brought over from the gym, and Suga was clutching a stack of envelopes in his hands. The team, managers, Coach Ukai and Takeda-sensei, none of them yet dressed for practice, were watching him eagerly, trying to gauge his reaction.

Kei blinked.

“Well, Tsukki, what do you think?” Yamaguchi asked, looking at him expectantly.

“Consider me surprised,” Kei said warily. The team grinned at each other.

“Happy birthday, Tsukishima,” Suga said, smiling at him. He held out the stack of cards, “I thought we should try and do presents, but Yamaguchi insisted that cards would be enough.” Kei nodded.

“Thank you,” he said, half to Yamaguchi and half to Suga.

“Sit down and open them, Tsukki!” Yamaguchi urged, pulling on his arm. Tsukki gave him a look, but Yamaguchi was already sitting, as were a few of the team, so Tsukki followed suit.

It took much longer than he expected to open the stack of cards. He kept being interrupted, namely by Hinata, Tanaka and Nishinoya, until Suga took pity on him and sent them a look that quickly shut them up. There were seventeen cards in total, one from each member of the team excluding Yamaguchi, who had put his card and present with those from Kei’s family earlier. Kuroo, Bokuto and Akaashi had also sent a card each. Kei was told that they had sent theirs to Daichi and Suga ahead of time. How they had found out the date of his birthday, Kei didn’t know, but he suspected that certain members of the team had passed on the information without his knowledge.

Once the cards had been opened, Daichi and Coach Ukai hurried the team to get ready for practice, and Kei was glad to have the attention taken off of him. He put the cards in his bag before changing. His mother and Akiteru were going to be delighted. He had never had so many cards from this many people at school before.

 

Practice, thankfully, was back to normal, but it was clear afterwards that no one was expecting to leave straight after practice. There had been a cake in the clubroom, after all, and Kei had noticed Hinata, at least, eyeing it hopefully earlier.

Daichi had brought a knife with his lunch, and produced it once everyone had changed out of their practice clothes.

“Make a wish, Tsukishima!” Hinata yelled. Kei sent him a ‘shut up’ glare so powerful that Hinata took one look at his face and hid behind Kageyama. Kei snickered at that.

Kei considered the cake thoughtfully. It had been a long time since he’d made a wish as he cut a cake, and he wasn’t about to now. Yamaguchi must have let it slip that strawberry cake was his favourite, as the cake before him was most definitely a strawberry cake. He sent Yamaguchi another suspicious look, but Yamaguchi just grinned at him.

Kei carefully stuck the knife into the cake and cut a line to the edge.

Within a moment, Suga was there. He took the knife from him and portion controlled the cake into sixteen equal pieces. How he’d managed that, Kei wasn’t entirely sure, but he figured it was one of those things about Suga he’d learnt not to question. Suga handed him the first piece, then handed out a piece of the rest of the cake to the others.

Kei sat next to Yamaguchi and ate his cake, trying not to show how much he liked it. The cake tasted as good as it had looked, and it had been a while since he had had strawberry cake. It was all he could do not to swallow it in one bite. He ignored the knowing look Yamaguchi sent his way that told him his friend had seen through it, but he had half expected that. None of the others had noticed, but Yamaguchi knew him longer than everyone else put together, and could read him better than everyone barring his family. Tanaka crouched next to Yamaguchi, clutching his own piece of cake.

“Yamaguchi, you were supposed to blindfold Tsukishima to get here,” he accused, “Not just take his glasses away.” Yamaguchi shrugged.

“Same difference,” he said, “Tsukki can’t see a thing without his glasses. It wouldn’t have made a difference if I’d put a blindfold on him.”

“Shut up, Yamaguchi,” Kei frowned. Yamaguchi knew he didn’t like to spread around how much he needed his glasses to see, even to his teammates.

“Sorry, Tsukki,” Yamaguchi smirked.

He still didn’t mean it. He never did.

Kei was ok with that.

Kei was pulled into conversation with everyone on the team at some point, until he successfully managed to fend off the continuous attempts to entice him into conversation off onto Yamaguchi, who happily jabbered away with them instead.

 

They only stayed for another half an hour. Yamaguchi had glanced up at him from his conversation with Kinoshita, and within the next three minutes, he’d successfully extracted the both of them from the noisy clubroom and outside into the dark, cool, quiet night.

He’d always been able to read his expression well.

They didn’t say anything for the first part of their journey back to Kei’s, until Yamaguchi spoke up.

“Was that ok?” he asked, “The surprise party.” Kei considered, thinking back over the evening. It had been fairly low-key, for a surprise party, which he appreciated. There hadn’t been any strange, new people, there hadn’t been any loud music that drove his ears mad, and it had even been split by a normal practice session in the middle. He hadn’t even had a long drawn-out opening session, thanks to Yamaguchi insisting on cards only.

“It was fine,” he told Yamaguchi, “Thanks for keeping it quiet.” They knew the team wasn’t quiet in general unless asleep, but Yamaguchi would understand what he meant. Yamaguchi beamed at him, and there was an extra spring in his step as they turned a corner and kept walking.

 

“How was your day, boys? Did you have a nice time at the party, Kei?” Kei’s mother appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, spatula in hand.

“How did you know?”

“Tadashi-kun told me of their plan two weeks ago,” his mother replied, “How was it?”

“It was fine,” Kei replied, “I’ve got cards.”

“How lovely! You go put them up in the sitting room, then come and sit down. Dinner’s going to be ready in five minutes. How are you, Tadashi?” Yamaguchi followed Kei’s mother back into the kitchen, chattering away with her about practice, their school day, and the party. When Kei joined them a few minutes later, Yamaguchi was filling her in on his conversation with Ennoshita and Suga about the latest antics of the team’s problem children.

 

After dinner, they moved into the sitting room, where Kei’s mother admired all of his birthday cards as he opened the gifts from her, Akiteru and Yamaguchi. Kei was glad that none of the cards he’d been given were wildly inappropriate. He wouldn’t have put it past Kuroo to send him one that was unsuitable for public display.

 

Yamaguchi always slept over on his birthday, no matter what day it was. It was another tradition from when they were younger, and Kei wasn’t about to change it now. As they settled down for the night, Kei in his bed, Yamaguchi on the futon, Kei almost breathed a sigh of relief. He had another year until all of this happened again.

He thought back over the evening. There was something that was nagging him, and it took a few moments to work out what it was.

“Mum said you’d told her about the party two weeks ago,” he started, “but we all know that Hinata can’t keep a secret for that long.” Yamaguchi snickered.

“He knows when to keep his mouth shut,” he defended, “But… we kind of didn’t tell him until two days ago.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, seriously. And it was _still_ a close call. He almost let it slip last night.”

“Is that why Nishinoya-san covered his mouth suddenly?”

“Yep, and Daichi suggesting tossing practice was to distract him.” Kei snorted. It certainly made more sense now.

“Yamaguchi,” Kei started, then trailed off.

“What?” Yamaguchi prompted.

“Thanks.”

Yamaguchi didn’t reply, but he didn’t need to. Kei could practically hear his smile.

“Shut up, Yamaguchi,” Kei said automatically. Honestly, was it really _that_ much of a feat that he hadn’t minded the little surprise party? Yes, it was unexpected, and yes, he wouldn’t have been interested in a party had he not been cornered into it, but Yamaguchi had made sure that it would be a comfortable environment for him, and as such, Kei had rather _enjoyed_ it.

“Sorry, Tsukki,” Yamaguchi laughed, “Night.”

“Goodnight, Yamaguchi.”

As he drifted off to sleep, Kei thought that maybe this evening's club party was another Yamaguchi-based birthday tradition he could get used to.

If it kept quiet, and he had Yamaguchi there at his side, then perhaps it would be fine.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
